DS: Future Imperfect
by Thor2000
Summary: In a crossover with Ally McBeal, Ally has married William Collins, the son of Barnabas and Angelique, and her life seems to be the story book romance she has always wanted until she delves into the Collins family secrets.


PART ONE

In the winter of 2005, Georgia Angelique Collins was all of six years old and many like all little girls, her best friends were the twelve to fifteen dolls, which covered her room. She talked to them and asked them their wardrobe requirements as she paused, stepped into the bathroom at the end of the hall, grabbed several wash towels and used them as tiny blankets. She was an adorable little girl with long dark curls bouncing on her shoulders and brown shoe button eyes. Just looking upon her, you could tell there was a magical spark in her from her mother.

From elsewhere in the house, she heard her little sister screaming her head off. Georgia just barely looked up as she saw a vague shape shoot past her open door. A naked five year old rushed past the door and into the bathroom at the end of the hall. The giggling preschooler slammed the door shut and locked it. On the other side, Ally McBeal-Collins had jumped after her baby and slid ten feet before crashing into the closed door.

"Ouch!" Ally rose rubbing her head. "Lainey, unlock the door."

"No!!" The shrill voice screamed through the door. "I want daddy!"

"Unlock the door!" Ally clenched her teeth.

"No!" She would have been cute if her mother wasn't getting so angry.

"Look," Ally tried logic. "I did not carry you in my body for nine months to be treated like this! Open the door!!"

"No!!!" The girl puttered around inside as she tried to figure out what to do next. "I want daddy!!!!!!!!"

"I'll give you ice cream."

"That's how you got me last time." Lainey sang in a little conniving singsong little voice. She heard her mother rattling the doorknob. Ally sighed and turned around noticing Georgia watching fascinated to see her mother losing it.

"I can climb up the tree and then into the window." The girl offered.

"Then I'd have both of you in there, wouldn't I?" Ally realized the truth while she and Georgia shared a grin. Trying to out think her own daughter, the tired lady lawyer looked back at the door and then toward her other daughter. "Honey, go down to your father's study and get his toolbox. I'm taking the door down."

"Okay!" Georgia loved to see someone else getting in trouble. When her big sister Maddie still lived here, she was always crawling in through the window late or sneaking boys upstairs. Now off attending boarding school in New York, her older sister only seemed to come home for money or laundry. She heard her mother yelling through the door upstairs as she headed down the steps. At the bottom of the foyer stairs, the sound of the door rattling gathered her attention when she crossed it.

"Hi, monkey!" William Benjamin Collins dropped his duffel bag and scooped up his middle girl. She cheered and squeezed him tight as she kissed him. He was the prodigal husband and the would-be heir of Collinwood, his family estate. When he wasn't writing ghost stories, he was living the real thing crawling through deserted houses, dank castle structures and deserted and condemned buildings. Often he came home smelling like a person gone to war. He could have smelled like garbage and skunk droppings and his daughter would still want to hug him. All she knew was he was back from chasing more ghosts. Squeezing his daughter, the proud father looked around expecting to be attacked by his adoring family. "Where's your sister?"

"Locked in the bathroom." The girl admitted with a curious giggle. William had a sinking feeling as he pondered what was going on in his house. He headed up the stairs of his Collinsport home and peered down the hall hesitantly ready to retreat in haste. From the far end, Ally, the love of his life, locked eyes on him as he appeared.

"Finally another adult!" She kissed her husband as they crowded before the door. William placed Georgia aside and cleared his throat. He knocked briefly to the locked door and wondered what he was going to find. "Elaine, open the door."

It became silent as they all looked to the door. The lock turned and the latch opened as two adorable brown eyes became innocent and peeked out. Decorated with brown curls, the little angel in them beamed up to her father with all the love in her heart.

"Daddy!" She reached to him contently, but it was her mother who glared toward her and stuttered trying to say something. She had dreamed of being a mother all these years, but she had never prepared herself for children with minds of their own. Finally grabbing and lifting up her little nudist, she wanted to shake her and scream at her for humiliating her, but she didn't have time for that. She dropped her youngest daughter in the waiting bath and grabbed the soap.

"It's cold!!!" Lainey screamed with a shiver through her body.

"And whose fault is that!" Ally grabbed the soap and began washing her without another word. Not wanting to be vicious, she turned the hot water on to warm the bath without looking up.

"I may regret asking," William dropped the lid on the commode and sat down. "How was your week?" As he sat, Georgia climbed up on to his lap to be close to him.

"Busy," Ally washed her daughter in the bath as she talked. "Two cases in Boston and the principal here...."

"Did Lainey forget her underwear again?"

"No," Ally took the shampoo to wash her daughter's long wet hair. Playing with the one bath toy she was allowed, the tiny five year old scowled and remained indifferent to the bath. "Georgia..."

"Georgia?" her husband looked up unprepared. His middle daughter was usually an angel.

"Yes," Ally washed her daughter's hair. "They think the reason she's acting up in pre-school is maybe she's not being properly stimulated and she becomes distracted when things go too slow. They think she could be gifted." Ally turned grinning. "She gets that from my side of the family."

"Oh, yeah," William was briefly getting interrupted by Georgia showing her new crayon pictures from her room. "You McBeals and your big giant brains..."

"What's gifted?" Elaine asked out loud after over hearing the conversation. Her parents tried to think of a way to tell her without making her sister seem superior.

"Uh," Ally thought a minute. "It means she thinks differently."

"Oh," The girl turned round. "You mean she's stupid. I could have told you that!"

"Man, am I going to sleep........." William yawned tiredly worn out from his trip from Germany.

"We've got a dinner party tonight." Ally reminded her husband as she rinsed her child's hair. "We promised Matt and Barbara Cooper we'd be there the night you returned, and that's…" Ally looked to William with a sneaky grin. "Tonight."

"Oh man…." William groaned tiredly.

"You promised two weeks ago!" Ally reminded him. "Look, I have been dutifully taking care of our daughters for two weeks looking forward to this." She started rinsing Lainey's hair. "Your mother's under the weather and your sister still gone on her honeymoon and Lizzie has a date, but Amanda can baby-sit. Come on, I need to talk to someone adult about things other than cartoons and dolls!"

"Aunt 'Manda's coming!!" Georgia's eyes lit up. "Oh boy!!!"

"That...." William stood over his girl in the bath. He wondered about her certain excitement to having his redheaded cousin as a babysitter. "…Is not a good sign."

PART TWO

A quick shower had perked him up long enough to spend an evening with Matt Cooper and the young elite of Collinsport. William Collins thought of his buddies Russell Coleman and Matt Oh and started planning dinner conversation once the wives and girlfriends slipped away. He was actually hoping they would slip away. Sometimes Ally and the other girls clung to their husbands and tempered and restrained their masculine rituals of bawdy stories and marital complaints. His fingers fumbling with his tie and a sting of aftershave over his freshly groomed chin, he answered the door. His cousin, Amanda eagerly turned her head toward him. The redheaded daughter of Quentin and Maggie Collins, she shined toward him with the radiance of a beautiful and regal British actress and gave him a peck on the cheek as she entered.

"Hi!" She beamed with her two blue eyes. "Where are the little monsters?" She looked under the foyer furniture and up to the crystal chandelier above them wondering if the rats were about to crash down on her with the fury of pint-sized commandoes.

"I dunno. They were playing with the dryer a minute ago." William grinned in jest as he fussed with his tie. She grinned at his exasperation and helped with it. There was a secret emotion to her lingering smile as she helped him. A romantic feeling for him she had not lost growing up filled her senses once more and she quickly tried to dismiss it.

"You look great!" The Kate Winslet look-alike adjusted and fixed his tie.

"Thanks." William tried to loosen her knot. "How are you doing? Anything happening with that guy you're seeing?"

"Scott?" Amanda looked away in embarrassment. "He didn't treat me the way I wanted. Not the way someone else once did...." She sneaked a lingering gaze back to her married cousin, but he was quickly distracted by the vision of his wife coming down the stairs. Ally McBeal-Collins looked ready to meet royalty in her black Chanel dress. Her long brown hair was trussed up atop her head and her alabaster neck as graceful as a princess. Her breasts looked as if they were about to pop out the top of her dress and her long skirt moved with her when she moved toward William.

"How do I look?" She beamed and looked forward to the evening with adult talk and conversation. It might have just been a formal dinner party with some of her local law partners and her husband's closest friends, but she was feeling like a regal monarch in this nearly storybook town.

"Too good for me." William added. Every time he looked upon her, he fell even more in love with her.

"Now, Amanda." Ally picked up her purse as she caught Amanda doing one of her tortured looks for William. "The girls are playing upstairs, there's food in the fridge and the Cooper's number is next to the phone if there's a problem."

"There won't be." Amanda insisted.

"And keep them out of my study!" William added as he escorted Ally out the door.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Amanda watched the two parents head out the door. She briefly waved and watched them decide over his black late model trans-am or her current up to date vehicle. There was no doubt about it; they departed in Ally's Lincoln Town car. Amanda turned back inside and closed the front door. Hurrying up the stairs after a brief gasp for confidence, she headed up the stairs with an optimistic pace and turned left for the playroom and peeked inside the toy-strewn room. No rug rats here. She frowned curiously toward the TV playing a cartoon, peeked into their parents bedroom to see if they were watching William and Ally drive away then looked around curiously trying to figure out this minor mystery.

"Where are you?" She called out. "We are not playing this game! Come on out!" She looked in and around the closet of William and Ally's bedroom again and then the guest room. Where were they? She strolled down the length of the hall to the back stairs to the kitchen and then down to the first floor as she walked the length of the house.

"You are not scaring me!" She called out. "Like I said, we are not playing this game!!!" The lights went out and left her in complete darkness. She groaned a bit irritated and felt the wall for a switch and clicked it. No power. She realized they were at the fuse box in the basement or at least one of them.

"Georgia! Lainey!" Amanda crept her way down the hall. "This has been fun, now let's stop it!" She heard a noise from over her head. It sounded like a hurried folly of running steps. At least one of them was in the attic playing "The Sounds of Halloween." It was a creepy gothic music with moans and groans and chains as Amanda rolled her eyes and felt for the door at the other end of the hall.

"Please, girls, don't do this..." The attractive redhead felt the doorknob in the darkness and opened it to the dark second flight of stairs. She looked up and felt a string grow taut in front of her pulling something at the top of the stairs. Amanda's eyes widened as a rolling chair turned round from the top landing toward her. She saw a dark figure in the moonlight of the garret windows with a skull for its face. It turned and dived on her in one movement.

As the neighbors heard her screams, everyone realized the Collins girls were being babysat again tonight.

PART THREE

When the lights went on, two cherubic faces with curly brown hair were standing over Amanda and giggling and laughing. They were then pleading to her not to tell their parents as they took apart their dummy filled with clothes and returned the plastic skull back to their father's desk in the study. It was used to store licorice, their father's candy of choice. Bad feelings were forgotten as Amanda remembered how much fun her childhood was and she once more played with the girls and shared their world. They were sitting on the floor of the playroom playing cards by midnight. Little Lainey was playing two hands of cards with her stuffed Barney sitting in as the fourth player. Checking her cards, she flipped them down.

"Gin!" She grinned her toothless smile and giggled as she took the last of the cookies. Her sister, Georgia scowled realizing she had lost.

"You cheated!!" She pinned her sister to the floor and knocked over an empty bottle of Pepsi as Amanda grinned and bit into an Oreo cookie. Across the wall, she saw the quick flurry of headlights dance across the wall from a car coming up the long driveway out in front of the house. Scrambling to do her job, she began grabbing the trash up as fast as she could.

"Bedtime!!" She called as the girls jumped to their beds. Covers pulled up and tucked in within one minute, they waited as Amanda kissed them and rushed the trash into the wastebasket behind the door. "Remember, you were in bed at eight!" She urged them to keep their secrets.

"Okay!" They chorused as the lights went out in the room. Hoping their parents didn't see that, Amanda pulled her sweater over her head and hurriedly returned it to Ally's closet in the place she had taken it. Returning the blouse and shoes too, she was pulling on her t-shirt once more, adjusting her hair with a rushed flip of her left hand and then a quick slide down the banister to the bottom. Standing on her mark, she was standing at the front door as the happy parents returned home with the conversation from their gathering.

"You ate all the shrimp." Ally reminded William.

"I did not." He argued back. "Matt was shoveling it as fast as I was." Ally straightened her lip and rolled her eyes toward Amanda looking guiltlessly innocent.

"How were the girls?"

"Little angels." Amanda answered. "Asleep for hours. Oh, and, uh, Maddie called. She needs money for a school thing." In the back of her mind, Amanda was pleased not to have the blonde teenager in the house. She was William's adopted daughter and Ally's biological daughter involving some eggs Ally had thought was in storage. Given birth by another childless couple, Maddie loved the prestige of the Collins family, but she did not like or trust Amanda. It was a sensation that the red-haired heiress felt.

"She does, does she?" Ally grinned contently as William opened his wallet and pulled out a fifty. He was half asleep already.

"Ten dollars an hour, okay?" He paid her for her time as Ally dismissed herself and headed upstairs. Moving directly for the girl's room, she peeked within it for just a minute at their little curled up bodies, then grinned with motherly pride and stepped inside the bedroom. A stray plastic soda bottle fell over in her path when she kissed Georgia lightly and then cross over to similarly kiss tiny Lainey. Feeling her mother over her, the child looked up with the exuberant glee of a happy daughter.

"Hi mommie!" She sat up in bed.

"Why aren't you asleep?" Ally sat on the girl's bed.

"I waited for you." The girl claimed.

"Oh," Ally scratched her chin. "Did you and your Aunt Amanda have fun?"

"Oh, yeah!" The girl beamed ear to ear. "She ordered us pizzas, and we played house. She even wore some of your clothes and asked us to call her mommy."

"We weren't supposed to tell that." Georgia whispered out loud in her sleep.

"Oh, yeah!" The child innocently remembered. Ally slowly grew alarmed as she wondered about her husband's cousin. This wasn't the first time she had felt something odd about her.

"What… um… uh… else did she tell you not to tell me?" Ally asked as the headlights of Amanda's Volkswagen pulled away through the window of the darkened room.

"I canna remember..." Lainey tried to think.

"Oh," Ally put her fingers to her mouth as she uneasily stood up. "Well, you just... go on to sleep." She wandered out in a very disturbed state. She rethought half a million incidents between the redheaded cousin and her husband as well as Amanda's repressed annoyance with her at times. Things she had never paid attention to before were starting to return to her. At times, it seemed as if there was a competition for William's attention. She was always quick to help him or have something to eat at Collinwood. One time William and Jamison, Amanda's brother, returned from a comic books expo in Bangor and Amanda kept William at Rose Cottage for another two hours to help her out. She even made his a sandwich and made him late for dinner with his family. Could Amanda have feelings for William that neither of them knew? Was there something lurking in that red-haired brain that was potentially unstable? She felt William kiss the back of her neck as he entered their bedroom and placed his hands on her hips from behind her.

"Remember the last time I kissed you like this?" He whispered to the ear he was nibbling.

"Yes," She gasped. "Nine months before I had Elaine."

"Oh," he stopped. "Well, that's one mistake I won't repeat." He replied jovially playful Ally grabbed a crocheted pillow and threw it to hit him.

"Honey," She changed moods. "I don't think I want Amanda babysitting anymore."

"Why?" William sat on the bed and took off his shirt and tie. "She's crazy about them."

"Crazy." Ally remarked. "Let's go there. Does she have any feelings for you?"

"Ally," William was aghast. "She's been like a sister my entire life. I've looked out for her since she was born."

"But she's not your sister." Ally dropped her earrings in her jewelry box as she unzipped herself and allowed her dress to drop. "You're really what? Third cousins twice removed?"

"Her father, my uncle Quentin, and my Aunt Carolyn share a great-grandfather." William told the family history as it had been told to him. Part of his schooling under his Aunt Maggie was practically memorizing the Collins family tree. "That was Geoffrey Collins and he was a grand-nephew of my father's ancestor, the very first Barnabas Collins, the man in the foyer portrait. So, we're like fourth cousins twice removed or something like that..."

"So," Ally debated. "She could have feelings for you."

"But we were raised as brother and sister!" William slipped into bed in his underwear. "You've nothing to worry about."

"But…" Ally pressed the point. "Your Uncle Willie is a descendant of Desmond Collins…"

"From the New York Collinses...." William dropped to sleep. "That's too far back. Come to bed, Ally." Ally sighed, grunted and turned to her reflection in the mirror. William's uncle, Willie Loomis, was the man her husband was named for and he was married to Carolyn Stoddard, the great-granddaughter of Geoffrey Collins, a cousin of Willie's ancestor, Desmond Collins. The whole concept had been discovered after Willie and Carolyn had married and it was passed over because Joshua Collins, the family Eighteenth Century patriarch, had been married successfully to his distant relative Naomi from the last branch of the British family tree. Ally wondered if Amanda saw it as her chance to be married to William. With such an interconnected Collins family tree, Ally couldn't shake the feeling that Amanda had designs on her husband. Her eyes looked up to her reflection in her vanity mirror. It looked briefly like Amanda grinning back to her as she gasped and blinked her eyes. A quick shock to her system, Ally recoiled with a gasp and looked again. It was herself again. Feeling back to normal, she covered her mouth with her hands.

"She's going to kill me." She whispered to herself.

PART FOUR

Carolyn Stoddard Loomis was signing checks at the desk in the drawing room when she heard the front door. She looked at the clock as she rose, stroked the hair out of her face and opened the front doors wide as Ally stood there with her nieces. The two of the cherubic brown-eyed darlings were trussed up as if they were Sherpas crossing the Himalayas. She dropped to their  
size as she helped them out of their coats.

"You two little angels..." Carolyn gazed on her grandnieces and recalled the fun of having children in the house.

"Angels?" Ally scoffed knowing her daughters better. "Yeah, right."

"You're so cute I could eat you up." Carolyn spoke baby talk as she remembered her own kids at that size. "And speaking of eating up, there's two bowls of ice cream in the ice box for both you. Why don't you go get them?"

"Oh boy!!!" The girls cheered simultaneously. Fettered from their coats, Lainey and Georgia jumped around precociously and scampered through the drawing room for the back way to the kitchen. Once gone, Carolyn stood up straight and looked at Ally. She yawned and tiredly fumbled with her coat as she hung it behind the door.

"Carolyn," She started. "Thanks for watching them but William's mother is still under the weather. He and I really need some time together alone."

"I can see that." Carolyn led her to the drawing room sofa and gestured her to sit down across from her before the fireplace mantel in the back right corner of the room. She reached to the teapot on the table and poured her a cup. "How are things going?"

"Great!" Ally claimed. "William and I are gone about a week out of every month, him for his ghosts, I for Boston." She sipped her tea. "Richard still wants me for partner despite what Nell and Liza want. Billy and Georgia come visit every so often, my parents every three months...." Ally grinned at the prospect at having her parents so far away.

"But what's bothering you?" Carolyn handed her a cup of tea.

"Um...uh..." Ally tried to find a way to ask what was on her mind. "Does.... um, uh..." She grinned platonically. "William's cousin, Amanda, have..." She lightly giggled. "Any feelings for.... him?"

"Oh god, she isn't still in love with him, is she?" Carolyn groused over that nearly forgotten family revelation.

"What?!" Ally nearly turned over her tea.

"Ally," Carolyn handed a towel to Ally as she sat back. "You're a Collins now, and you better know now that there are a million little dirty secrets about everyone in the family." She sipped her tea as she tried to think back. Ally had become silent as she listened.

"You know Jamison, right." Carolyn continued. "Amanda's brother?"

"Unfortunately."

"Jamison is a womanizer, just like his father, my cousin Quentin." Carolyn shifted her weight as she talked. "Only worse. Worst off, he terrorized Amanda pretty bad growing up. I don't think he ever liked having a little sister. That and being the only redhead in a thousand miles, Amanda developed some self-esteem issues quite early in her life. She always been quiet and resolved. William was the same way and they used to support each other in their neuroses. The only exception was that William got to leave and travel with David for all these haunted sites, and Amanda felt trapped here. On the other hand, William being the oldest always looked out for her the same way he did for Sara, and I guess in her mind, Amanda decided that she needed him and fell a bond with him. Needing that sort of connection, she must have decided that she was in love with him. It's been like that since they were kids."

"Is she dangerous?" Ally asked.

"Heavens, no." Carolyn reshifted her weight in her seat and insecurely pulled up one of her legs under her. "Not that we know of. She's been in and out of therapy since high school. I mean, remember Paula Anderson."

"Paula." Ally remembered the girl William almost married.

"We think Amanda may have poisoned her so she could take her place and go to the movies with William, but we could never prove it." Carolyn recalled. "But that was years ago. Amanda's changed. She's been to therapy. She's dating now."

"Um, well," Ally spoke up as she took a cookie off the tray. "She scares me. It's almost as if she's plotting something."

"Ally," Carolyn placed her cup down and poured more tea. "It's just your imagination. You've nothing to..."

"Mommy!" Georgia was screaming from the back kitchen before running into the drawing room through the back hall. "Tell Lainey to stop pinching me!!!"

"She pinched me first!!!!!" Elaine had a face covered in chocolate ice cream as she raced for Ally.

"Now, these kids..." Carolyn grinned. "That's what you should be afraid of."

PART FIVE

David Collins, the forty-something son of the late Roger Collins, came down the back stairs of Collinwood and ambled into the kitchen stroking his goatee and scratching at hairs on his lip missed by his razor. He grinned at his daughter Carrie and William's two little girls sitting at the table eating ice cream and sharing stories.

"Dad," Carrie Collins looked up with restrained exuberance and a toss of her long dark hair. "Can I have my allowance?"

"I guess so." David rubbed his whiskers as he poured coffee with his left hand and pulled out his wallet with his right. William's daughters, Lainey and Georgia, looked like two precocious fairies as they sat eating their ice cream with their legs dangling from their chairs.

"Your father here?" He asked them before giving Carrie her fifty dollars.

"No," Georgia replied. "But mommy is." David just grinned and patted her head as he thought over his errands. He still wanted to call his ex-wife Hallie to get custody of his son for a while, he wanted to go by his restraunt to check the books and he still had his work as a freelance web designer. In his role as the head of the Collinsport Ghost Hunters Society, the agency that William worked with him in, he had other more interesting endeavors in the works. A trip to Gracie Manor down in Louisiana brooded through his mind and a visit with Dr. James Harvey down the coast in Friendship was way overdue. For some reason, he couldn't get Vannacutt Sanitarium out of his head. The catacombs under the asylum, David wondered if there was anything there he had missed in his three visits. Even long lost Rose Red came to him at times and it had been knocked down just a few years ago.

Crossing from the dining room to the drawing room, he noticed Ally and Carolyn sitting on the sofa, drinking tea and comparing stories. "Ladies," He strolled in nonchalantly and stood before them. "Carolyn, did you sign my check?"

"It's on the desk." She answered as David looked over and picked up his check from the estate that covered his living expenses. It was only slightly less than his computer firm turned out, but still enough to support his team of ghost-hunters and parapsychologists.

"Ally," David turned to her as he put his check in his wallet. "Tell William I've got a week scheduled at Calvados Castle in France and then a return trip to the Hotel Overlook in Sidewinder, Colorado. I'll need to know if he wants to go with us."

"I don't think so." Ally replied still sipping tea. "I want him to stay home for a while."

"You go, girl." Carolyn applauded her nephew's wife for keeping him at home.

"Next time?" David grinned and turned out. He took his jacket from the coat rack by the front entrance and was pulling it on as he stepped outside and turned for the three car garage at the end of the veranda stretching the length of the main house. He skipped down some stairs and strolled the walk to the driveway as he looked up and saw a set of legs wearing hot pants sticking out from the hood of a convertible Volkswagen. He felt like a dirty old man gazing upon those legs.

"Hi, Uncle David." Amanda stood up straight. Her red hair pinned back, she twirled a wrench and replaced a gasket in her car.

"Hi," He hovered over her handiwork. "I didn't know you knew cars."

"Cheaper than a mechanic..." She replied wiping dirty oil on her t-shirt.

"You know," David reacted contemplatively. "My brakes are making this noise...."

"Now, you know why I don't tell anyone." She beamed with a light giggle. "My brakes aren't very good either. I replaced the pads and changed the oil, but I still can't...."

"Check the bleeder valve?"

"The what?" She asked as he took the wrench, reached far down under the engine and twisted something.

"Just a little loose." David grinned as the proud uncle, but then he unconsciously hated himself for checking her out her figure.

"How did you know that?!" The young beauty grinned.

"When I was a kid..." David made an embarrassed smile. "I was a bit of a brat. I removed the bleeder valve in my father's car to scare him. It was supposed to be a little joke, but I almost killed him in the process."

"You did that to Uncle Roger?!" Amanda grinned at the dirty little memory. "I bet he tanned your hide."

"We didn't speak for a long time." David passed the wrench back. "Keep it real." He wiped his hands on a napkin from his jacket, slipped into his van and pulled away as he drove down the driveway. As Amanda watched him, her eyes drifted to Ally's Lincoln town car parked in the open.

"Bleeder valve, huh." Her eyes narrowed to it as a thought came to her devious mind.

PART SIX

Ready to depart, Ally knelt down to her girl's height as Carolyn leaned against the doorframe to the drawing room. Ally was about to leave them as she left them with a warning.

"Now," She pulled on her coat. "I'll be back to get you tomorrow morning so please be good for your Aunt Carolyn, and don't give her any grief."

Georgia giggled sadistically as Lainey copied her. "Oh, mommy, you're so funny."

"Don't worry, Ally." Carolyn looked up. "Any trouble and I'll lock them in the East Wing."

"Now, you be good." Ally stood up as she pulled her long hair out from under her collar. Georgia was smiling funny as if she was the one in charge. Ally kissed her first and then Lainey and waved with her fingers as she stepped out and walked the outside veranda to her car parked at the end of the drive. She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out her keys.

"Hi, Ally." Amanda waved cheerfully from the garage. "Isn't it a beautiful day?!"

"Yes," Ally narrowed and shifted her eyes. "I guess it is." She tried ignoring her as she motioned for her car.

"I was just thinking what a nice day it would be to go for a stroll along the cliffs." Amanda insinuated something before she slammed the hood on her convertible Volkswagen and put her tools away.

"Okay," The diminutive lady lawyer folded her arms and shifted her weight to one leg. "Let's cut the crap. Why are you being so friendly to me?"

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Since the day William and I married," Ally acted as a lawyer despite not being in the courtroom. "You've been distant and hostile to me, and now, you're trying to be my friend?"

"Have I been like that?" Amanda seemed genuinely confused. "I'm sorry. I never meant to make you uncomfortable. I guess I never realized how I was acting."

"Yes, well," Ally opened her car door. "Maybe, you ought to think about it." Ally slid into her driver's seat and slammed the door. Amanda reacted from it looking around distractedly. She watched as Ally started the car and backed up to drive down the long drive to the main road. Most of it was hilly and around the other structures left on the property since the town was founded. Parts of the estate hadn't been altered in over two hundred years.

Ally looked into the rear view mirror as she watched the red-haired cousin become a speck in the distance. She looked just in time as the roads turned into the huge ramp descending down the hill. Rising almost a hundred feet, it bordered the hill on her left and a fifty-foot drop off to her left topped only by a short three-foot wall. The sheer face of the brick embankment off the side was supported by rock and concrete obscured by trees. The trees whirled past her driver's side window and grew in size next to her as she made it to the bottom of the hill. Her brakes squealed as she turned at the sharp turn at the bottom for the main road.

Much of the road from here was mainly dirt and gravel as the terrain dipped and turned. Ally was driving by her right hand as she rested her head in her left hand braced on the door. She planned a peaceful quiet night with her husband and slightly speeded up to take another small hill. She braked to slow down and scowled at bit when her eyes noticed her speed was still continuing to accelerate down the other side of the hill. She stamped her brake pedal a bit and felt it go straight to the floor.

A bit worried now, she gripped the wheel in both hands and sat up straight. Her eyes became alarmed as she hoped it was just her imagination. Wondering the last time she had a full tune-up, she wondered if her brakes were going bad and hoped she had just enough time to get off the estate and get to a garage. She had barely covered a hundred feet and her car was continuing to go at the same speed. Gripping the wheel, she watched the road swerved a bit and her car plowing forward. She shrieked lightly as she put both feet on the brake and put her weight into it. Her hand next gripped the door as the last curve surprised her.

Hitting her head on the roof of the car, she fussed with her seat belt and felt her car sent airborne over the ditch and sailing headlong into the trees.

PART SEVEN

She wasn't sure how long she had been unconscious, but she was happy to be alive. Ally gasped from her weary body as Doctor B. F. Pierce hovered over her. He shone his penlight into her eyes as her irises contracted from them. The old Army surgeon usually practiced over in Crabapple Cove but once in a while he was required to pull hours here in the county hospital. His head of silver and white hair bobbed a bit and he beamed his harmless jovial grin as she tried to move.

"Mrs. Collins," Dr. Pierce stopped her. "You've got a pretty bad concussion and a broken arm. I wouldn't be moving."

"William???" She gasped.

"He's on his way." David stood several feet away with Carolyn standing watch. After leaving the girls with her daughter Lizzie, the blonde matriarch of Collinwood stood with her cousin in the hall and doorway of the examination room. They both watched together as Dr. Pierce took care of Ally.

"David," Carolyn turned to her uncle's son. "What happened?"

"I was returning for my check book when I saw her drive off the road." David rubbed his head worriedly. "I pulled her out and called the ambulance on my cell phone..."

"Did you ride with her in the ambulance?"

"No," David confessed. "I wanted to check her car first."

"Why?"

"She crashed in nearly the exact same spot father's car did when I removed the bleeder valve years ago." David answered. "I thought it was a little suspicious, so I played a hunch. Thank god, her car didn't spark her fuel line because I noticed her bleeder valve had also been removed!"

"What?" Carolyn reacted incredulous to the circumstances to which he was alluding.

"It's all my fault." David was punishing himself. "I told Amanda the story about father's accident just before I left and why I did it."

"Oh, god!!" Carolyn grabbed her forehead as Ally was being treated. Although given a sedative for the pain, the petite lady lawyer was just conscious enough to listen to their whispering discussion. Carolyn turned from David dramatically as she confessed too.

"Ally said that Amanda was out to get her and I told her not to worry. How stupid was I!"

"Where's Amanda now?" David asked.

"I sent her to tell William about the accident."

"That psycho's with my husband!!!!" Ally shrieked.

PART EIGHT

By time Amanda explained the crash, she had added her belief that Ally had been killed on impact. It sounded like a logical assumption. Her Aunt Carolyn had made it sound like Ally didn't survive. Not knowing the truth, William felt his spirit knocked out of his body and was glad she was there to keep him from falling to the floor. She took his hand tenderly and pulled him closer to give emotional support as she felt his arms hold her back. She grinned privately to herself as his arms crossed her waist. His heart close to hers, his head on her shoulder... it was all she ever wanted.

"I can't believe it..." His heart was breaking. "Ally? .......... I don't think I could live without her............"

"No, don't say that." She gasped as she squeezed him closer. "I'm here." She caressed his chin close to hers. "I can help. I can move in and help take care of the girls." She exhaled deeply as her lips ran across his jaw and to his mouth. Her heart was pounding. He was vulnerable and slipping into shock. His eyes were swelling with tears at the mere thought that he had lost the one true love of his life. Amanda wanted to be his crutch through this heavy blow. She kissed him passionately and felt her heart felt lighter than it had ever been. She felt as if her body was soaring.

"Amanda!" William pushed her back once he remembered who she was. "What are you doing?!!"

"Trying.... to help you.... feel better?" She stammered as her eyes rounded in shock.

"Oh, god!!" He turned from her, wiped her lipstick off and turned from her. "I thought we went over this years ago. What about Scott?"

"He doesn't know how to treat me." She mumbled.

"Ally tried to tell me you was acting funny." William started running several things through his mind. "Why are you doing this to me? I'm your cousin!!'

"But I love you!!!" Amanda's eyes began to fill with tears from the emotion in her heart. "None of my relationships worked because no one ever came close to caring for me the way you did for me!!! You always took care of me. I was there for you when Tricia broke your heart and when Paula left you. Why can't we go back to the way things were?"

"Amanda…" He tried to shrug her off. "My god, Ally…" he suddenly had a horrible thought. "Were you responsible for her death?"

"Please," She reached out for him. "Please, hold me again!! I need you so much! I can help you again!" She took his hands and tried to put them back where they were.

"Amanda," He was becoming upset and her selfish needs. She was losing him. "You're my cousin, and I care about you, but I love Ally. She was the best thing in the world for me. I can't replace Ally with you!"

"No." She refused to accept it.

"Please tell me the truth!" He implored her. "Are you the one who hurt Ally?!"

"But you love me!!!" She was crying hysterically. "I did everything for you!!!" Her tearn strewn eyes watched as William sighed aggravatedly and reached for the phone.

"Maybe someone else can tell me the truth...." He dialed the number for Collinwood as Amanda reached for her purse on his desk.

"No!" She slammed the receiver down as she heard a car pull up outside. Coming up the long drive, David Collins' van squealed to a stop just before he jumped out and raced up the walkway for the front door. Out of the front seat, Carolyn opened the sliding door and was helping Ally out of the car. From somewhere, they all heard a loud popping sound fill the neighborhood.

"Ally," David turned to her from the railing on the front veranda. "Your front door's locked. Where's your key?"

"My purse." She mumbled under her medication. "What was that sound?"

"My van's been backfiring." David answered.

"Ally, " Carolyn supported Ally with her broken arm as she tried to rush inside. "You should have stayed in the hospital. You're still under the sedatives."

There was another loud popping sound. This time Carolyn realized it was echoing through the house. Her eyes widened in fear and her mind hoped it wasn't what she thought it was.

"That was no van backfiring." Ally realized it as well and fumbled with her key. David grabbed it from her to hurriedly unlock the right side door. His hands and fingers fought with the worn lock and a faint click. Breaking free Ally pushed ahead into the foyer and wobbled uneasily with her arm in a sling. "William?"

"I'll check upstairs." Carolyn rushed up the stairs to the side of the entry.

"I'll check his study." David jogged down the hall to the back of the house and reached to slide open the doors. Watching in fear, Ally watched him jump back from something and forced herself forward. Her feet were lead weights heading after him. David stood looking down to something on the floor and then spun to stop her from coming closer.

"Ally, don't look." He pushed her back, but she looked over his shoulder and noticed saw her husband's body sprawled across the floor. Her voice screamed at the top of her lungs before she dropped to the floor and pulled him close to her. Lifeless, prostrate and unconscious, he wasn't moving at all. He was laying in a disgusting splatter of something covering the floor. Reaching to hold him, Ally realized the back of his head and been blown out. There was no beaming grin for her, he wasn't reaching to hold her and he wasn't telling her he loved her. He wasn't doing anything nor was he ever going to do another thing. Ally's spirit collapsed and her soul died with her bawling. Coming from the doors to the kitchen, Carolyn Stoddard-Loomis came toward them after searching the upstairs.

"He's not..." She screamed too. David had turned to the opposite wall and was crying into his fist as Ally lost it. The young man who had once followed his aunt around the estate of Collinwood was no more and his wife was refusing to let go of him.

"Please wake up..." She kept repeating. "Please wake up......... please wake up.... oh, god..." She screamed out again at the top of her lungs. Her breath coughed on her hysterical breath pounding through her grief.

Gritting his teeth and gaining his resolve, David stepped over William's legs and headed to the phone to call an ambulance. He hit something with his shoe as he looked down to the stick floor under his feet. Amanda was on the floor behind the desk with her Uncle Roger's pistol in her hands. The top of her head was blown open too; her eyes were open staring with love around the end of the desk to William's remains. One final teardrop crossed her face and fell to the floor under her head. A lump in his throat, David checked her pulse and choked back the emotions at the double tragedy.

Ally screamed her heart out once more refusing to accept it.

"No!!!!!!" All the soul poured out as her life came to an end. Her dream life was coming to an end.

PART NINE

After David Collins finished talking to the police, it became obvious that the truth about the deaths would not be leaked to the press. It was no one's business to know that one of the Collins family members had been killed by one of their own; especially one who had been destined to inherit the estate. The claim that became part of public record was that William and Amanda had surprised an intruder and been killed in the process. Only the immediate family knew the truth and Ally was not going to accept it at all. The storybook marriage she had held above the heads of her family and friends had come to an abrupt halt. Amanda had killed her too and all she had left was to wait to die and let the grief do its job. William's mother, Angelique Collins was not her usual self either as she tried to cope with the fact that her first-born son was now taken from her. She glanced to her grand daughters barely eating at the breakfast table and tried to think of them. She tried to find solace in their presence, but it was not enough. Their father would not get to see the women they would become.

"I want daddy to come home." Lainey mumbled over her oatmeal.

"Me too." Angelique replied to herself as she heard a car horn. "That will be your Aunt Maggie to drive you girls to preschool."

"Bye, grandma." Tiny Georgia kissed her grandmother and grabbed her lunch before running out to their Aunt Maggie waiting on the cobblestone path out front. Lainey scuffed her feet a little slower and looked into her grandmother's big blue eyes.

"Daddy could come back if he wanted to, right?" Her brown eyes glimmered a bit less now.

"I wish it were possible." Angelique forlornly kissed the curly haired moppet as she straightened back up. Walking a bit slower now, Barnabas Collins came past the running kids heading out to Maggie's van before he poured his morning coffee. His somber and forlorn face stared across to her. All the things that had occurred in their life meant nothing now. Angelique could only gasp and turn to hand him his breakfast as she choked back her tears. Oatmeal was the only thing she could make now. She wasn't in the mood to cook the way she usually did.

"I got a postcard from Sara and Joe on their honeymoon." Angelique tried to go about her business. "I couldn't bare to ruin their happiness with bad news."

"Angelique," Barnabas tried to hold her. Her eyes were becoming overwhelmed with tears. "There was no way we could have known. We can't bring him back this time." He kissed her neck before pausing for the emotion. Even a tear dripped from his face realizing they would never have another son. William was the grandest thing to come out of their once stormy relationship. His absence was pulling them together closer more than his birth ever did.

"A mother should never outlive her children." Angelique gasped before turning to a breakfast tray on the island counter. "And Ally hasn't gotten up from bed since before the funeral. She's losing it."

"She's going to need our help." Barnabas replied as his voice vibrated with grief. He watched his wife pick up the breakfast tray and head up the back stairs to the second floor bedrooms. All the powers she had used in the past to get what she wanted and one inexplicable flu bug prevented her from being aware of what had happened. She had prevented and kept her son from falling out of trees, jumping off roofs and drowning in the waters off Widow's Hill, but now she had to face the inevitable. Her son was gone from her life for real and nothing she could do was bringing him back. Bumping open the door to her daughter's room, she looked at Ally laying still on the huge canopy bed staring out the windows to the morning sunlight streaming inside through the windows around the portrait of Josette DuPres. She had barely moved or spoken since William was laid to rest in the back of the mausoleum at Eagle Hill. She had to be clothed and dressed by Angelique and Maggie just to attend the funeral. Without her husband, Ally was refusing to live.

"Ally," Angelique placed the tray down. "Please eat something. You haven't eaten in days."

Her daughter-in-law just kept staring out the windows in a self-imposed trance.

"I know you loved him, I loved him too, but you can't live like this." The former sorceress blocked her view. "You have two daughters here who need you."

No response came from her daughter-in-law except for a tear falling down over the tiny lawyer's face.

"Ally!" Angelique caressed her shoulder and pulled her covers into place. She kissed the back or her head and felt her heart break. Unable to handle it any less, she defeatedly left the room and started back to the back stairs trying to decide what to do to help her. The route inadvertently took her past her son's old room. It was the last reminder she had of a tiny young boy she once knew who carried home buckets of sea shells and followed an infatuation for his Aunt Carolyn. Her granddaughters were staying in it now. This time as she passed it, she noticed the door inexplicably open. As she reached to close it she heard a woman's voice crying and then the glimpse of a spirit in a long white dress rushing out of her sight.

"Josette!" Angelique's paranormal awareness was never stronger as it was now. "Please, don't go. I need you." She turned and saw the ghost of her husband's beloved at the other end of the hall. Her face was obscured beneath her veils and her ethereal body was still phasing between this world and the next.

"I know you owe me no favors, and this is probably your vengeance for all the terror I ever spread, but Josette, my former mistress," Angelique gasped with her voice breaking from her grief. "Don't let Ally suffer. I don't care for me, but if my son is with you, unfurl your hand and let him come back. His wife needs him."

Josette started fading indifferently to these events.

"No, please don't go," Angelique almost stepped forward. Tears were fully falling down her face now. "Please, let William come back. Please! Not for me, but for the sake of my grandchildren." She collapsed in the hall and began crying in the doorway of her son's room.

"Please, Josette," She cried worse than any other moment in her life. "Please…"

PART TEN

The ageless spirit of Jeremiah Collins looked up from his seat on the front veranda on the Old House. Often appearing as handsome as he was in life, or in the bloody disfigurement from his deadly duel, he too recalled his brother's son fondly. If but their father had a chance to meet the boy, he was sure both he and Naomi would have approved. Maybe they finally met in the afterlife. Surly approaching the Old house, the specter of Caleb Sayers Collins in his blue Civil War uniform left Seaview to bring another phantom to the Old House. He had not cared for young William Collins when he was the young rock thrower who broke the windows of his house, but it was easy to forgive when he realized the love William brought into the house he had built. Caleb had stopped pounding at the foundation to watch the young man fill the house with the sounds of life he wanted with his own true love. Upon his approach, Josette pulled back her veils for once in a long time and saw the boy in the face of the man before her. She had often sneaked looks at the son of Barnabas Collins when he was an infant. Each time the boy was giggling, no one knew the lady in white had been hovering over his crib. But the figure was a boy no more; he had grown up and even had children of his own. Even Jeremiah had shorn his gruesome visage at times to look with pride upon his brother's son.

Feeling the love in his heart, Josette hugged William's confused spirit to welcome him into the house of his parents. He was still trying to discern where he was and who these ghostly figures were guiding him from his home. In the years he had tried finding proof of this ethereal world between earth and the afterlife, he just never realized just how dreamy the real world looked to ghosts even after he became one. His parent's house was dark and unreal to him as he found himself taken up the stairs and to the room at the top. The phantom of Reverend Trask beamed to the lad as a man of god. The Widows from the cliffs bowed to honor him. Even Josette beamed to him silently and motioned to him to sit before his grieving widow pining for him.

"Ally," He couldn't understand how he could have forgotten her. She appeared to his spectral eyes as a watery mannequin with a semblance of her likeness. "I don't know if you can hear me, but... I don't want you to grieve me for me. You were the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and I loved you very much. You were the only one that I think ever really loved me for who I was."

She hadn't moved at all. He must have been invisible to her for all he knew. Invisible and inaudible, he tried to make his presence known to her. He had to get her to hear him, but what chance did he have when he could never hear the ghosts of the estate when he was alive?

"Ally," He continued. "Please don't do this to yourself. I guess it's my fault for not realizing what Amanda was capable of, but had I known, things would have been different. I shared so much with you and it hurts so much to see you grieve. I can't stand to see you like this. Please, baby, live for me."

He stared deeply into her eyes looking for life in them. He touched her shoulder and kissed her forehead.

"I will always love you." He told her as he felt himself fading away from her.

"Don't go!" She spoke!!

Her bones creaking and stiffly responding, Ally sat up slowly and moved her hand to touch her shoulder and then caress her forehead. A tear dropped from her eye as she glanced around the empty room for a minute. She thought she had felt someone touching her, but she didn't see anyone. She just forced her feet to the floor and almost collapsed as her legs nearly gave out on her. She was so weak. Where was she? This looked the bedroom of her brother's sister in the Old House. She had seen portrait of Josette Collins and the antique furniture several times. Struggling to walk across the room, she dropped on to Sara's vanity table and glanced over the perfumes and make-up containers here and noticed her reflection. She looked much older than she was. Her face was thin and she had dark circles under her eyes. She just forced herself up once more and staggered toward the door clumsily. Picking up her robe, she fussed with it as an angry child fighting a piece of disagreeable clothing and covered up her pajamas to make her way out of the room. Bumping the wall, she slid along the surface of it to the back stairs.

"Ally," Angelique whirled around from making lunch and rushed to support her. Easing her down to the table, she grabbed a coffee cup and filled it with orange juice for her daughter-in-law.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

"Tired…" Ally's eyes were filled with tears.

"I know you loved him," Angelique stroked her hands. "But you must live on. He would have wanted it that way."

"I know…" Ally sipped the juice as her mother-in-law fussed with her mussed hair. "But... it's just so hard. He was my whole life." Ally started crying again.

"I'll be there for you." Angelique's blue azure eyes beamed with optimism despite the tears of emotion she had. She hugged Ally and pulled her close as she looked up and saw Josette slip out of sight in the hall to the foyer. The former sorceress whispered a thank you to the hurrying phantom unaware that William watched distantly contently from the top of the back stairs.

END


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